Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
A printing apparatus, which prints information such as characters and images on a printing medium, is known. As a printing system, an ink-jet printing system, which performs printing using inks, is available. In recent years, a multifunction printer, which adopts such ink-jet printing system (to be referred to as an ink-jet multifunction printer hereinafter), has prevailed. As a feature of the ink-jet multifunction printer, a copy process on plain paper and a direct print process on photo paper can be achieved by a single printer.
When such printer generates printing data based on an image, color profiles (parameters required to apply color matching) have to be switched, and color adjustment is required. Such printer normally includes a function of selectively executing image processes based on objects included in an image. For example, upon printing an image including text and photo areas, the printer discriminates the text and photo areas, and applies, for example, a sharper image process to the text area than the photo area.
As a method of selectively applying image processes in this way, a technique that assigns attribute values to an image, and executes the image processes using these attribute values is known. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-341446 discloses a technique which determines attributes included in rendering commands and controls the image processes based on the determination result when it generates bitmap data from the rendering commands and applies image processes to the bitmap data. Also, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-124233 discloses a technique which prohibits any modification of a specific image (e.g., a logo mark) in an image based on attribute values.
In the aforementioned techniques, when the circuit arrangement which executes a plurality of image processes in turn is assumed, the attributes of image data are determined prior to execution of the respective image processes. For this reason, a time required to execute the full image processes is prolonged, resulting in poor throughput.